


thunder, lightning, always

by SaraJaye



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Female Friendship, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, Love Triangles, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Ski Lodge, Rings, Self-Discovery, Slow Build, Uncertain Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 18:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7652623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/pseuds/SaraJaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when Maya doubts the one constant in her life, it's always there to pull her back, to remind her of what matters most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thunder, lightning, always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baroqueriot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroqueriot/gifts).



( _It looks good on you, Maya._ )

 

One day, Riley taught her to hope, and it snowballed from there. Riley had always tried to teach her hope, it never took, but one day it finally sank in. _You have to believe everything will turn out all right._

It's changed her so much it's almost scary. She dresses differently, she smiles more, her grades are up, she has a real relationship with her mother. She still lives in a tiny apartment in a less than pretty part of the neighborhood, but it's warmer somehow. The broken, cynical girl with a hopeless crush and the need to stir up trouble for trouble's sake seems so far away.

At first it's a relief not to be under a constant cloud of _life sucks, get a helmet_. She's still wild, still crazy, still telling everyone to live a little when they tell her to simmer down. She's the one to take care of Riley for once, when some _jerk_ is texting her nasty messages for daring to be herself.

For once, she and Riley are on a more even level. Riley always made her feel safe, but someone so sweet, someone as close to perfectly pure as a person can get needs protection from awful people who send nasty messages, telling her to stop being her. She tasted optimism and faith when Shawn found closure with his old girlfriend, and she tastes it again when she pulls Riley out of her depression and brings back that lost smile.

 

( _Promise me we'll always be together._ )

 

It's not until the gang goes to Texas that things actually get scary. She's looking at Lucas differently, he's looking at her, he grabs her face by the campfire and Riley claims she's not into him anymore but it's a _mess_ and they let it turn into a stupid triangle. Everyone knows about it by New Year's, and Riley won't fight for what she wants because _she just wants Maya to be happy._

They spend the rest of their final year of middle school in a triangle. He won't choose, he _can't_ choose because Ranger Rick is just _too damn nice_ to hurt anyone's feelings. Riley's been forced out of denial by Farkle, but she still won't make a move without Maya's consent.

"You deserve him more. You've been through so much, and if he makes you happy you should be _with him._ " Maya tries not to twitch, she's never liked pity and to hear Riley say she "deserves" a romance just because her life's sucked is almost an insult even if she means well. Riley _always_ means well.

"What about you, Riley? What about _your_ happiness?"

"Sometimes a girl has to learn that first love isn't true love. I'll find someone else, that's what life's about." Riley shrugs. "You like Lucas, and if he picks you I just have to deal with it." There's something in her tone that makes Maya think Riley hasn't entirely recovered from the nasty messages on her phone, even though she personally made sure they were deleted forever.

"He might pick you, Riley. You're the one who can listen to his horse-giving-birth stories without dumping a smoothie on his head."

"You saw him first. You _liked_ him first." And Maya doesn't know what to say, Riley can be stubborn when she wants her way, especially when her way means wanting someone else to have theirs.

"So what are we going to do about this?"

Let Lucas decide, Maya guesses. But he doesn't know what he wants, and Maya's getting the sinking feeling he's not alone.

 

( _Ring Power._ )

 

High school makes everything worse. Maya witnesses the mess of romantic drama, the very thing she was running away from when she refused to admit her feelings for Lucas. Everything changes, the group nearly shatters at one point and the only constant that remains is Riley.

She gets her first-ever A in Spanish, she's happy. Riley gets an F and she's miserable. They joke about how they've suddenly swapped roles, but with the joke comes a sense of dread and unease.

_Riley's always been there, always looking after me, teaching me to smile, to hope...suddenly it's all sticking. I can't remember ever smiling this much or caring about my grades._ But that just means she's growing up, right? She's still Maya, even if she did get that one A. Okay, two As. But she's not acing her other classes, she's only average in those even if she's doing better than the Ds she used to get.

Art is the one class she _should_ ace, but the teacher accuses her painting of lacking a point. The truth is, even she doesn't know what it is. For the first time since she picked up a pencil and discovered her talent, she didn't know what to paint. A bunch of purple dots on a purple background.

"You'll never be a true artist until you're true to yourself. So who are you?" Mr. Jackson asks. Riley hisses and snaps at him, tells him he's wrong and recounts all the silly things Maya used to do in junior high, but all Maya can do is apologize. _For what, though?_

Days later, Mr. Jackson is the one to apologize when he holds her painting at arm's length and Maya realizes what it is under all the dots and splotches.

_I'm her._ It hits her like a boulder, and she wonders how she didn't see the warning signs. The clothes, the grades, her mother, the constant smiles. Now the purple cat stares her in the face, and it hits her that she _does not know_ who Maya Hart is anymore.

She does the only thing she can do. She drags Riley to visit Shawn, who wears a sweater and serves them tea and cookies. When Mr. Matthews comes to collect them, he and Shawn have the same conversation Maya had with Riley.

_I'm you. How do I find me again?_

 

(For the first time since getting it, she can't bring herself to look at her ring.)

 

Shawn proposes to Mom, which brings a momentary rush of bliss and euphoria, but that only makes the problem worse. When she's happy she wants to be good, and being good got her into this mess in the first place.

So she decides to leap back in time a few years, to the bad girl who started the homework rebellion. The one who made fun of Lucas instead of having stupid weird feelings about him. She _did_ think about hiding the money and pulling the fire alarm, but those don't seem like enough.

Maya finally has her chance one night. The old playground, her old friends, a brick and a hammer.

"Go for it, Hart," Carla says, and Maya raises the hammer. _Do it, Maya, you're not her, you're a bad girl, just do it and find Maya again._

But her hand freezes just before it touches the statue, her head and her heart filled with Riley. Riley, who wouldn't want her to do this, who worries about her, who always kept her from stepping over the wrong side of the line.

Shawn told her a story, about how he fell in with a bad crowd and nearly wrecked Superintendent Turner's motorcycle before Mr. Matthews and Turner himself stopped him. Made him realize that he was better than that, better than the goons he insisted were "his kind of people".

It took Shawn years to thank Cory for believing in him. Maya doesn't ever want to go more than a day without thanking Riley.

She steps away, lowers the hammer and shakes her head. _It would be like slapping Riley. I can't do it._

"You're weak," Carla scoffs, snatching the hammer away and hitting the statue herself. "See? That's how it's done." She starts to go for the second head, but Maya's too quick. She grabs the hammer and the brick, gets Carla in a headlock and glares at her. _I didn't get to touch the jerk who sent her those nasty messages, but I can stop this._

"You're wrong," she says, "I'm stronger than I've ever been. I just didn't realize it."

When she gets back to the Matthews house, she hugs Riley as if she'll never let go. _Because of you. You're my strength, you're part of me and I can't escape it and I don't want to escape it._

"Maya was never gone," Riley says, "she just took a little vacation. You had to try being not Maya to find her."

"You're really turning into your dad, honey," Maya murmurs, burying her face in Riley's hair.

 

( _Ring Power._ )

 

There's one thing she still can't figure out, and that's the triangle. She's calling Lucas Huckleberry and all those other names again, but she still feels weird when he gets too close to her. She'd wondered if her feelings for Lucas were just part of the whole _I'm Riley_ thing, but she's Maya again and they haven't really gone away.

Riley tried to goad her into fighting for Lucas to help her find herself, but Maya knows she wouldn't have fought Riley for a guy. They'd tried that in 7th grade, over Farkle, realized how stupid it was and Farkle ended up with Smackle anyway.

(Sometimes she wishes Farkle were still single so Lucas could just go with Smackle and be done with it. They flirt enough with each other anyway.)

And Lucas _still won't choose._ He's so damn _nice,_ so obsessed with not letting anyone get hurt that he's making everything hurt _more_ by dragging it out.

Part of Maya likes to think she and Lucas have the whole opposites-attract thing going on, but she remembers their dates and how she just _couldn't connect with him._ Not the way she can with Riley, who she can stay up all night talking to and cuddling with and listening to her go on and on and on about...anything, really. Even Lucas.

Even now, even when she seems willing to fight for Lucas and won't let go of her feelings, she'll still step back if Maya looks the slightest bit interested. She pictures Riley alone at the prom, watching Maya and Lucas dance. Riley, her maid of honor, smiling bitterly in her tie-dyed dress. Riley holding her and Lucas's first child before leaving town forever.

The last thing makes Maya's breath hitch and her eyes sting with tears, she puts down her pencil and stares at the half-finished portrait.

Riley. Smiling, purple Riley.

She likes to think Riley would never turn bitter and run away over Lucas ending up with someone else or Maya getting married first, but Maya doesn't want to take that risk. _I can't lose her over anything, especially a stupid triangle that never should have happened._

 

( _We'll always be together._ )

 

When the group meets up at Topanga's after school the next day, Riley suddenly excuses herself to go for a walk. Farkle and Smackle leave early for their study date, Zay has "somewhere else to be" and that leaves Maya alone with Ranger Rick. Almost as if they planned it.

"I made my decision," Lucas says, edging closer to her on the couch. So has Maya, but she'll let him talk anyway. She almost wants to hear what he has to say.

"Oh?"

"It's you, Maya Hart. You're the only one for me, I knew it the moment we met on the subway." Lucas's hands cup her face tenderly, his eyes look into hers. "Will you be mine?"

She gently peels his hands from her face and shakes her head, trying not to gag.

"No sell, Huckleberry." And Lucas barely bats an eyelash, shrugs his shoulders and smiles.

"I thought so." Maya raises an eyebrow.

"Excuse-moi?"

"You're backsliding. You're teasing me, calling me those old names, you're not blushing and glaring at me every time I get too close," Lucas says. "The whole triangle was a mistake from the start, and we all knew it."

"Riley, too?"

"That's the real reason I saw this coming," he says, and pats her shoulder. She doesn't even have to ask what he means, because in the end, Riley is the reason for everything. Because Lucas cares just as much for Riley as she does, and neither of them can stomach the thought of hurting her.

"Thanks, Ranger Rick." She shakes his hand. "Ah, that felt good! I've missed making fun of you." Lucas just smiles in that annoyingly charming way of his.

"I kinda missed it, too."

 

( _Everything's going to be all right._ )

 

Maya comes home to find Riley on her front steps. She doesn't look sad, but she doesn't look happy, either. Confused is the closest thing Maya can gague from her expression.

"Wanna talk?"

"You weren't at the bay window, so I thought I'd wait here for once," Riley says, scooting over so Maya can sit down. It's freezing and it looks like it might rain, but Riley has her umbrella as always. "I saw Lucas this morning."

"I bet I don't have to guess what it was about," Maya says. That explains why Riley left early, at least. _He couldn't choose, so he **didn't** choose._ She feels a new respect for Nice Lucas, one she's never felt before.

"He told me he wasn't ready for a girlfriend," Riley says quietly. "That he thinks I'm wonderful, but that he just doesn't see me like that right now...I think I'm supposed to be crushed, but I haven't cried even once. I cried more the night Farkle realized I still had feelings for Lucas, but now that he's actually rejected me..." She sighs. "I should feel like the world's ending! I mean, he's been what I wanted since I fell into his lap on the subway, he was my first date, my first kiss..."

"Riles, come on, who _really_ ends up with the first person they ever..." Riley gives her a _look_. "Oh, right. But even so, your parents' rules aren't our rules. They're weird."

"It's not just my parents, Maya. It's Auggie and Ava, they got married in kindergarten and they're still stuck to each other like glue," Riley says. "Mom even _likes_ Ava now." And Maya nods, getting it.

"So everyone in your family found their first love as a kid and you feel left out."

"I guess." Riley leans against her, Maya instinctively drawing her head to her shoulder and wrapping an arm around her waist. Riley relaxes, her breath soft and warm through Maya's sweater. "But the truth is, I'm not even sure that's what _I_ want. I mean, sure, it'd be great to have a big romantic love story like Mom and Dad's, but..."

"But then you'd miss out on a bunch of stuff, right?"

"But what good is it if that's not what the person I love wants? They'd just end up hating me for holding them back." Riley tenses a little, shifting in Maya's embrace, almost as if she's about to pull away. "I don't want to be responsible for someone missing out on life."

She senses something in Riley's tone, something she's sensed many times before. Maya's always been aware of what simmers under their bond, something more than just Best Friends that they never talked about. Not out of fear, but more out of Maya thinking it didn't really need to be said.

But everything's different now that they're in high school. The safe, cozy little life they left behind is a speck in the distance, things matter. Riley's tense, she's doing everything and anything to avoid looking at Maya and for once, Maya wishes she were the Miss Fix-It type.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Riley pulls away. "I-I should really go home, Mom and Dad-"

"Don't expect you back for another hour."

"Oh yeah." Riley still doesn't look at her. "Maya, I'm sorry, the triangle, all the times I tried to make you something you're not, it's my fault you-"

"You wouldn't be holding me back," Maya interrupts her. "It's not holding someone back if they _want_ to be with you forever. As a best friend, or as more." Riley freezes, her cheeks going from pale to bright red; Maya's afraid she'll start crying and she _hates_ that, it was bad enough seeing it once.

She doesn't cry, but she's not exactly smiling, either.

"You're not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?" _And we have confirmation. Beautiful._ Maya hugs Riley to her again, tightly so she can't escape this time.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you always give me my way," Riley mumbles, her face buried in Maya's chest. "Because I've been selfish, because I have this sick need to control everyone's lives."

"You just want everyone to be happy. That's not a bad thing." Maya chuckles. "Sometimes you do go a little crazy over it, but that's just who you are. It's what makes you my most important person and it's why I adore you."

A tug at her shirt, warm breath on her neck, soft hair under her chin. They've embraced like this countless times in the past but it feels warmer this time. Maya presses her lips to Riley's hair, strokes her slightly trembling back with gloved hands, and soon she feels Riley begin to relax.

"Thunder," Maya whispers. Riley pulls back, her eyes finally meeting Maya's.

"Lightning.

Their hands lock together, and a moment later so do their lips.

 

( _Together._ )

**Author's Note:**

> While I was surprisingly satisfied with the ending to the Ski Lodge two-parter, Riley/Maya is still the OTP of my heart. I'll never stop writing them even if Riley/Lucas is endgame and it grows on me more, and the show itself agrees that boyfriends or no boyfriends, Riley and Maya's relationship is THE most important one. The emotional core. (They even compared Riley/Maya to Cory/Topanga! Even if it's a different context, you can't get much more meaningful than that.)


End file.
